


the letter in the drawer

by shamefulshameless



Category: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 10:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21509416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamefulshameless/pseuds/shamefulshameless
Summary: Before he left Amsterdam, Boris found an envelope with his name on it. He’d wanted to open it in Antwerp, but he was so caught up in it all- his wound and Theo’s illness and the high and the movies, all of it so strangely different and yet exactly the same as when they were kids- that he put it out of his mind. He didn’t want anything to interrupt them. Now, it’s like the envelope has expanded in size, every day growing bigger and bigger and threatening to crack his bedside table in two. He doesn’t know what’s stopping him, but whatever the letter contains, he knows Theo doesn’t want him to know about it. It could be nothing- there’s always been so much innocuous bullshit that Theo keeps to himself for no good reason. Or it could be something. It could be something that Boris would be content staying oblivious to. There are lots of things like that.
Relationships: Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 39
Kudos: 344





	the letter in the drawer

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Важное письмо](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25549459) by [maricon_lanero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maricon_lanero/pseuds/maricon_lanero)



> Based on a tumblr prompt: Can you please write something where Theo tells Boris about his suicide attempt and this leads them to embrace the truth of their relationship/ feelings?
> 
> i sorta did what you asked for..

He doesn’t know precisely why he hasn’t opened it. It’s been sitting in the drawer of his bedside table for months now, pristine, untouched. Perhaps he doesn’t want to know what’s in it, but that doesn't feel entirely true, whenever he does allow himself to dwell on the question.

Maybe Boris hasn’t opened it because he knows it isn’t his place to, deep down, despite his own name penned neatly across the front of it. A clean white envelope, with a hotel insignia in the top corner.

He’d found it while ushering Theo out of his self-made cave all those months ago. He’d forced him up from the bed, basically pushed him out the door- _C’mon, Potter, places to be_ \- and into the back of Gyuri’s car. He’d been about to light a cigarette and climb in after, when he patted his pockets looking for his lighter. “Fuck,” he’d said, “One moment.”

He’d run back in, to the displeasure of his new best friend the concierge, and darted up to Theo’s room. He saw it, peeking out from under the chair where he’d sat during their long talk- it must have fallen out of his pocket when he took off his coat. The chair, well-upholstered, old-looking, was low to the ground, which is the reason he ended up on his knees, almost laying down reaching for it. “Too much trouble, this so-fancy lighter, and for what?” he grumbled to himself.

It was when his cheek was almost flush to the carpet that he spotted it. Poking out of the wastebasket, crumpled but legible. _Bor-_

Boris pulled the envelope all the way out of the bin and saw his name, in Theo’s neat lettering.

It clearly was not for his eyes, since there it sat amongst the rubbish, but Boris couldn't resist. He pocketed the letter, and the lighter, and ran back out to the car.

He’d wanted to open it in Antwerp, but he was so caught up in it all- his wound and Theo’s illness and the high and the movies, all of it so strangely different and yet exactly the same as when they were kids- that he put it out of his mind. He didn’t want anything to interrupt them.

Now, it’s like the envelope has expanded in size, every day growing bigger and bigger and threatening to crack his bedside table in two. He doesn’t know what’s stopping him, but whatever the letter contains, he knows Theo doesn’t want him to know about it. It could be nothing- there’s always been so much innocuous bullshit that Theo keeps to himself for no good reason. Or it could be something. It could be something that Boris is content staying oblivious about. There are lots of things like that, too.

The next time business takes him to New York, Boris feels oddly compelled to take the envelope with him. Maybe he’ll return it to its owner, along with the promise that he did not look at it. Maybe.

He sends Theo an email saying he’ll be in town, but receives no reply.

A few days into his stay Boris runs into some trouble, in the form of a pay cut disagreement between him and a certain organization he’s working with. With the painting no longer in play, he’s had to reorganize a lot of his business, and not all of his clients are thrilled.

He stumbles back to his hotel, blood pouring from somewhere above his hairline and smearing all over his forehead every time he swipes it away from dripping into his eye. He keeps his head down in the lobby and prays no one looks twice at him.

In the bathroom of his suite, he assesses the damage. Aside from the blood trickling out of the top of his head and lots of bumps and bruises, he’s got the beginnings of a black eye and a wicked ache in his side.

 _Ugh_ , he thinks, _Very American, a beatdown._ He stretches his aching fingers, shredded at the knuckles like when he was a teenager. Whatever happened to just shooting each other like grownups?

He isn’t sure what to do about his head. Myriam isn’t with him this trip, which is a rare occurrence, but she left first aid supplies in his bag. She doesn’t trust him not to get hurt without her, and rightly so. As he opens his suitcase and fumbles with the kit’s casing, he sees a drop of his own blood fall onto a crumpled bit of paper, peeking out from under a pair of his shoes.

_Boris._

Maybe it’s the blood loss, maybe it’s the adrenaline. Maybe it’s knowing that he’s so close by. Or a distant memory of so many different nights when he’d been beat up like this, bleeding and numb and stumbling his way to Theo’s house. He’d answer the door- _What the fuck, Boris?-_ and Boris would all but collapse into him, because he was the only person who would be able to slow down his haggard breathing. Boris pulls the envelope out of the bag and rips it open, not thinking, looking for that childlike exhale.

_Boris,_

_This is a letter I told myself I wouldn’t write. I finished all of the others and didn’t think I needed to extend you the courtesy. Unlike them, I’m not writing this to tell you why I’m doing what I’m doing. Because I know I don’t need to tell you; you are the only one who I trust already knows. Besides, we’re well past courtesy, aren’t we?_

_I’m simply writing to say goodbye, because I don’t feel like I’ve ever gotten good at saying it properly, and certainly never to you. Seeing you again, even given the fucked-up circumstances, has been a pleasure. Truly. I didn’t realize just how much I missed you until I saw you again, and it was like no time had passed. You're my best friend, the only one I will ever need._

_And since I’m about to leave the world, I feel I owe you that truth, along with a few others. (Please excuse the formality of this letter, but I don’t feel I can put all of this down and read it over myself without it. I find it easier to be honest if I, at the very least, sound smart.)_

_As a kid, and you know this already, I was utterly lost in the world. Every night I begged the universe to take it all away, to just explode itself and get it over with, so we as a species wouldn't have to suffer anymore. I had nothing except my memories and my hopes, which all mostly involved my premature death. I also had the painting, which you also know already._

_But when I met you, it was as if- pardon- the universe answered my prayer. You gave me a purpose, something to hold onto. We created our own world, one that no one else was allowed into, with our own laws and our own physics. Our little bubble protected me from the brutality of my life, and I hope it doesn’t offend you for me to assume it protected you from yours. And when you started going out with Kotku (I'm sorry but I can’t quite remember her first name) I felt as if our bubble had popped. But I found that instead of waking up from our shared dream world and running back to regular civilization, all I wanted was to return to that illusion. The drugs, the crime, the hot days and nights in my dad’s pool, all of it. It dawned on me, however terrifying, that the person I was when I was with you is the person I truly am. You are the only person who has ever met me. Take that as you will._

_~~So~~ ~~It~~ ~~I~~ ~~Ple~~ ~~Bor~~ It will come as no surprise to you when I tell you, my brother, my friend, I love you. And you love me, you've never made me doubt it. But I would feel remiss to die and leave it at that. I can’t die without telling you the extent of it. I am sorry for what I’m about to say- but I'm tired, Boris, of having secrets._

_I know where you stand on this. You told me very plainly, just a few weeks ago, with no way to mistake it. But it isn’t how I feel. I never felt like the things we did together were clueless teenage grapplings, or shitty substitutions for girls like Kotku or KT Bearman (God, remember her?). Those nights weren’t that to me. I didn’t know what they were, exactly, at the time, and I think I continued to broil in confusion about it until I started writing this letter, maybe. It’s all very clear to me, now that I have nothing to lose. I love you. As my closest friend, my only confidante, yes. And, also, I love you. I think I love you in every way a person can love. I don't pretend to know what that means. And it's probably not a compliment, to be cared for so deeply by someone so defective._

_Reading this letter will probably bring you a lot of pain, perhaps embarrassment and maybe even shame, and for that I can’t apologize deeply enough. But my intention isn't to hurt you. It never has been. Trust in that, and trust that nothing you did brought me here. That’s the other reason I’m writing this letter to you: because I know that you will immediately conclude that my death was your fault, in any and every way. I can't stress enough how untrue that is. This is always where I was headed. If not for you, I would have been here a lot earlier._

_You did not kill me, Boris. You saved me._

_I don’t know exactly how to get this letter to you- or even if you are still alive- but I hope you have gotten the chance to read it, and that it will bring you solace in the wake of my passing._

_I love you. And, I love you._

_\- Potter_

Boris drops the page softly to the ground with a shaky hand. It doesn’t have a long way to fall, since he- apparently- had sunk to the floor and is reading it with his back up against the bed.

When was the last time Boris cried? Was it in Amsterdam, in that very room? It might have been. Fuck that place.

He isn’t shaking or heaving, but the tears are falling thick over the hand pressed to his mouth. He’d missed it. He'd sat in that room and sneered at the state of him, laughed in his face and cried at his own philosophical musings, and hadn't seen what was staring at him in the face. It should have been so obvious.

Boris turns the letter back over. He glances again over the carefully scrawled words. I'm tired, Boris, of having secrets.

In an instant, he’s up on his feet. The blood on his forehead is drying, caked thick onto his skin. He takes it as a good sign that he can fucking ignore it and do what he needs to do right now.

Four minutes later he’s in a cab. Eighteen minutes later he’s outside Hobart and Blackwell, banging on the door. The old glass rattles and slams in the frame.

The letter is clutched in the hand that isn’t busy trying to spur an upstairs light on. It’s late, almost two o’clock in the morning, and perhaps it makes sense that no one is replying to frantic pounding on the front door.

He suddenly remembers the story Theo had told him, about the old man in the museum. The green bell. Boris finds it before too long, and presses all his weight against it, holds it down as he pants and pleads, _You better fucking come out here right now._

Finally, after several minutes of a shrill, prolonged buzz, the door opens. It’s the old man, in a silk robe and spectacles, looking extremely irritated.

“Can I help you?” he says flatly.

“Is he here?”

“Who.”

“Theo, Theo Decker, is he here?” Boris is breathless.

The old man squints at him, obviously perturbed by the massive amount of blood on his forehead and the shiner under his eye. It seems to click, and his gaze softens slightly. “You’re Boris.”

“Yes, yes, we’ve met,” Boris says impatiently. “Please, is an emergency, can you get him?”

“Do you need a doctor, or-“

“Is fine, okay, is nothing. This is not the emergency.” It takes all he has not to plow past him- Humphrey? Harold? Hubert?- and rip Theo out of bed himself. “Sir, please.”

He nods. “Of course. Theo's sleeping, but I’m sure he won’t mind.”

Theo had been such a light sleeper in Vegas, Boris thinks sourly, always waking up at the smallest sounds, at Popchyk shifting ever so slightly on his chest. But now the geezer is answering the door at 2am while he snoozes upstairs?

“I’ll go get him,” the man says. Boris takes a step forward.

“No need. May I just-?”

Boris shoulders past him without waiting for an answer. Normally he prides himself on his politeness, but such a concept isn’t even comprehensible right now. He speeds through the workshop, up the stairs into the hallway he remembers from his last visit. He could easily wait for the old man to catch up and tell him which room is Theo’s, but he opts instead for exploding through every closed door until finding the right one at the end of the hall.

Theo is asleep, shirtless on his back, mouth slightly open and illuminated in the streetlight filtering in through the window. If Boris was sixteen, he would sit and watch him, just like this, until the sun rose. And then he would pretend that he didn't.

But Boris isn’t sixteen. He kicks the leg of the bed, hard. “Potter. Get up.”

Theo stirs, his eyes open blearily. He squints at Boris. “Wh-“

“I said up, Potter, come on.”

“Boris?” he reaches for his glasses. “What the fuck, are you really here?” his voice is still throaty with sleep (another thing sixteen year old Boris would revel in and long for) and his eyes are wide.

Boris kicks the leg of the bed frame again. “You owe me explanations, Potter,” he says.

Theo sits up blearily and frowns. “Do you have any idea how old that is?”

“What?”

“The bed frame.”

“I don’t care-“

“Don’t fucking kick at it like it’s from Ikea, dipshit-”

“-is a fucking bed, you can buy a new one-“

“-because it’s worth a lot and you don’t actually know anything about this kind of thing so can you just trust me when I tell you-?”

“- my God, you are irritating.”

They stare at each other. Theo looks him up and down for a long moment and says: “Am I dreaming right now?”

Boris ignores him, and his fucking bed frame and bewildered, sleepy eyes. He reminds himself why he’s here. He holds up the letter. “Potter, what is this.”

Theo looks at it quizzically. “I don't know. What happened to your head?” He appears to have just noticed, and bolts up out of the bed to stand and examine it himself. “Jesus, and your eye...?”

He’s far too close, his fingers touching Boris’ chin to angle his eye into the light. “Do you need to go to the ER?” he asks.

“No,” Boris says firmly, pulling away from his touch. “What is this?” he asks again, holding up the letter clutched in his fist.

“I have no idea. When did you get to New York, I mean, I-“

“Really, you should take another look, Potter.” He presses the letter to Theo’s bare chest.

Theo looks down at it, turns it over in his hands. When he sees the name, the insignia on the front, all the color drains from his face. He starts shaking his head. “H- how did you get this,” he breathes. It’s like he’s lost ten years, and suddenly he’s that same kid Boris dragged in off the street.

_Come. Now, come on._

_Fuck you, just go away, go away and leave me here, okay!?_

“What were you going to do, ah?” Boris says, and his voice sounds so _angry_ but he can’t help it. “You were just going to leave us all here, just fuck off and die, no word to Boris, no word to old poofter and blondie, hope they find these fucking letters and don’t hurt too badly from it? This was your plan?” Tears are stinging behind his eyes.

Boris would get his hands under Theo’s armpits and feel hot tears drip onto his knuckles as they struggled in the middle of the road. When it was over, he’d look at Boris- terrified, anguished, embarrassed. It’s the way he’s looking at him now.

Theo is paralyzed, the letter barely in his grasp. “I- I don’t know, I didn’t think you would ever find it, I-“

“No, exactly. You were not thinking. If you had thought for even one second, you would know that _this_ ,” he points to it, “would have killed me. Killed me dead to know you had done it.”

“That wasn’t my intention, Boris, you know that,” he shakes his head wildly once again, so his glasses droop down his nose. “That’s why I wrote it, so that you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t blame yourself, that’s the last thing I want.”

“Come on, Potter,” Boris laughs grimly. “It would have been my fault. You know it.” He holds up his hands when Theo starts to protest. “Nothing you wrote to me would have ever- _ever_ \- convinced me that you dying in fucking hotel room in Amsterdam was not my fault. Nothing.” He’s on the verge of tears now, they both are. After a pause, Boris sniffs and holds his hands out- explain. “Tell me why you’re still here.” 

Theo clears his throat heavily, avoiding Boris’ eyes. “I threw it all up.”

“What did you take?”

He presses his hands to his eyes under his glasses, breathes deeply.

“Theo.”

When he re-emerges, his eyes are red-rimmed and damp. He looks at Boris; _yes, you already know._

“Fuck,” Boris falls back on his heels. “And then you write, oh no,” he laughs and it comes out like a sob, “Oh, not your fault, Boris, don’t blame yourself.”

“I would have just found something else.”

It’s all too much to picture- Theo hunched over the packet, ready for its contents to suck him down into oblivion. Dressed in his rumpled, bloody suit with room service trays and newspapers littered at his feet like corpses on a battlefield. In a city Boris dragged him to, after killing a man Boris knew, and losing the painting Boris stole. OD’ing, blank and empty, on heroin Boris gave him.

His legs feel weak; he sits with a heavy thud on the side of Theo’s bed. Theo himself is still frozen with the envelope in both hands, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

Boris runs his hands through his hair. “I found it in the trash,” he sighs. “Since you are so curious. I went back in for my light, and saw it in the bin. Didn’t open it until tonight.”

“I didn’t even know you were in New York.”

“Check your emails more, Potter.”

They stew in silence. Theo fidgets with the corner of the paper. “Did-“ he shuffles. “Did you read all of it?”

Boris nods. Theo looks so young, he thinks. Small and soft, face open and frightened. 

Again, he has the open, fourteen year old face, Boris realizes with a start, but not on one of the violent nights. When he first showed him the painting. He’d held it out to Boris, vulnerable, almost shaking. _I think it’s what I’m supposed to do. I have to protect it._ He’d put his hands over Theo’s, clutching the very edges of the board. _Is beautiful._

Theo says now, “I didn’t- I didn’t think you were going to ever see it. I wasn’t even sure if you were alive. I'm sorry.”

Boris jerks his head to the side. Come sit down. Theo obliges, sitting on the bed next to him but leaving a substantial distance.

“I should be sorry,” Boris says. “I don’t mean to be angry, I am not angry with you, Potter, I just- I know is not your fault. That you always feel this way.”

It’s more honesty than he knows Theo can take sober.

“What happened to your head?” Theo asks, shifting uncomfortably.

“New York gangsters. Very old school.” He half-smiles. “Haven’t been in a proper fight in long while. Like riding bicycle.” He holds up his scabbing knuckles. “Looks like when we were kids, eh? Getting in fights all the time.”

“With each other, mostly.”

Boris tilts his head from side to side. “Fair enough.”

He turns and looks at Theo’s profile, gloomy and tired. Quietly, he says: “Potter.”

“Yeah?”

“...You still want to be dead?”

Theo looks at his own hands. “No. Not like I did. It all feels so different now.” He clears his throat. “I’ve been traveling a lot, you know. And being back here, even for a few weeks, I realize that- letting go of it. It’s what I needed to do. Really let go.” He doesn’t need to say what “it” is.

Of course, he’d let go of it unknowingly years before, but neither of them need to bring that up here.

“I’m sorry I wrote all that,” he goes on, “About you and me.”

That portion of the letter had been at the back of Boris’ mind, honestly, the whole way over here. But its weight is starting to fall on his shoulders now, piece by piece. I think I love you in every way a person can love.

“I just hope it doesn’t ruin… absolutely everything,” Theo says. “But if you don’t want to- if you don’t want to see me anymore, or-“

“Who says I don’t want to see you anymore?” Boris asks, and Theo flinches at the genuine surprise in his tone.

“Don’t you?”

“Potter, I spent the last ten years thinking you hated me, wanted me dead. You think sad little note is going to get rid of me? Now that we are together again? Please.” He smiles. “Try a bit harder than that.”

Theo laughs. It’s a sight and sound that Boris would have once done countless dangerous things to see and hear. He probably still would go to untold lengths to light up his sad face.

When he’d read the words, they’d landed in his brain strangely. All at once, he’d thought _yes, of course, I know_ and _this must be a misunderstanding_ and _thank god_ and _holy shit please no_.

Looking at Theo smiling now, he feels the most like the former.

“You still feel this way?” he asks as softly as he can.

Theo’s eyes widen, a deer in headlights. Boris becomes certain that he’s going to lie, like he always does, but he nods, he actually nods. “I think so.”

Boris holds out his bloodied hand, palm up, on the stretch of mattress between them. An invitation.

Theo seems startled to see it, wary, as if it’s a trick. After a moment, he hesitantly touches his hand to Boris’. Their fingers wind together, like when they were boys. Boris turns his head to look at him, and sees him already looking back, strangely. “Boris, you said-“

“What would you have said. Honest. If our positions were switched up. If it was you- you would have said, yes, been thinking about you for ten years? Yes, have loved you since I was a kid? Or would you have said no, was nothing. Just no girls around, that’s all.”

He runs his thumb over Theo’s knuckles.

“I would’ve lied,” Theo says.

“Mmm. That is because we are both stupid.”

He laughs again, his eyes squinting up behind his glasses. “That’s probably true, isn’t it.”

“Is definitely true!” Boris cries. “I say to you, we needed girls? And you don’t think about how I had girl? I had Kotku on the side half the times that you and I-“

“I get it.”

“Am I wrong?”

Their laughter dies. Theo studies him apprehensively. The gap between them is closing, closer by the moment, a precipice they’ve been avoiding for a decade. Theo’s other hand runs through the curls on the side of Boris’ head. His thumb pads over the sticky, dried blood on his temple. “You really look like shit.”

Before he has time to stop himself, Boris kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> find me @ shameful-shameless.tumblr.com


End file.
